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Kent State University's Board of Trustees voted to change the name of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in a Zoom meeting Wednesday, June 3. JMC is revised to the School of Media and Journalism (MDJ) within the College of Communication and Information.

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Steven Schrum sat in his room in Reisterstown, Maryland, surrounded by miniature model professional stadiums, tinkering with his Madden 2001 lineup. With a PlayStation controller in hand, Schrum served as the architect of his favorite team — the St. Louis Rams.

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As an international student, I was frightened when I saw the pictures of empty supermarket shelves on my social media feed because it was at that point that I realized I was all alone in this and that I had to survive and take care of myself.

A: “I have three main points. One is a unified campus. I want to make sure everyone feels welcome on campus and we have a more of a Golden Flash family, a more community aspect to our college. I want to work toward a more unified feeling. I want to encourage students to do more collaborative events on campus because we have a lot of student organizations. A lot of the events are independent so I want to encourage students to do more things together. As president, I also want to implement more of an open-door policy. I want to be able to break the barriers between groups. I want to work on being more of a liaison between groups.

“Another big point I’m running on is safety on and off-campus. One program I want to work on implementing is a safe rides program in partnership with Lyft. This program would offer discounted rides at night for students in order to decrease the rates of drinking and driving on our campus.

“My last point is health: physical and mental health. With mental health, last semester I led a delegation to the Ohio statehouse to talk to the lieutenant governor about increasing mental health services so that is something I’m really passionate about. In April, I will be leading a delegation to Washington D.C to talk to Congresspeople about it. I also want the university to create an office of mental health. I feel like we have a lot of services, but many students don’t know where to go. I want to increase the amount of counselors and therapists on campus, and in that, I want to make them from diverse backgrounds to reflect the student body. For the physical aspect of it, I want to increase the amount of condom dispensers on campus, which can be a problem because students should have access to the products as a part of public health. And also increasing the amount of menstrual products around campus. In that, I want to make sure they’re available in both men’s and women’s restrooms. Everyone should be able to have access to those products no matter how they identify. This is what I want to achieve as president.”

Q: Why should people vote for you?

A: “I think they should vote for me because I am very dedicated to this. I have worked very hard in my position and have implemented a lot of great things. The Kent State Votes initiative, getting that off the ground has been such a challenge. Through all the struggle and everything I still have been fighting for it. I definitely will fight for students and I know sometimes students think we don’t do anything for them in student government but there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that they don’t see. I am not afraid to go up to the administration and advocate for what the students want even if it is something they [the administration] might not want. The whole point of student government is to be the voice of the students and be that voice no matter what their opinion is.”

Q: What changes are you looking to enact?

A: “As a whole, I want the government to be more inclusive and accessible to students. When I was a freshman, someone told me student government wasn’t for people that looked like me. That’s a really big thing I didn’t run on in my campaign last year because it’s a really touchy thing that took a lot for me to overcome. I realized that a lot of students still feel like that today. To be the first African American woman president, it shows a lot of change. It shows people that we are for them and that they are represented and they can be involved. Student government is supposed to represent them. It is getting a lot better, but there is still is a lot that needs to be done for it to be inclusive for everybody.”

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